Do Pão do Vagar is a cultural and artistic programme rooted in Torrão and in the tradition of Alentejo bread, inviting reflection on the relationship between food, landscape, biodiversity, memory and the future.

From October 2026 to November 2027, the programme follows bread long before it reaches the table: the soil, seeds, plants and landscape; the gestures of cultivating and harvesting; milling and fermentation; recipes, words and knowledge passed from one generation to another.

Through artistic residencies, research, fieldwork, educational practices and moments of public sharing, Do Pão do Vagarbrings together contemporary creation, intangible heritage, agroecology and community participation, with Torrão as its main territory for research and experimentation.

What landscape does a loaf of bread contain?

A loaf of bread contains much more than flour, water, salt and yeast.

It contains soil and a particular way of cultivating it. It contains seeds, water, plants and microorganisms. It contains agricultural and economic choices. It contains labour, techniques, words, recipes and forms of community organisation.

And it contains time.

Do Pão do Vagar begins with this relationship, looking simultaneously towards the past and the future.

On the one hand, it seeks to recognise and document memories, practices and knowledge associated with the traditional bread cycle in Torrão.

On the other, it asks what kinds of bread might emerge from more biodiverse landscapes and from forms of production capable of rebuilding connections between soil, food and territory.

The aim is not to recreate the past nostalgically. It is to understand what we can learn from it in order to imagine other possibilities for the future.

Two projects, two timescales

The programme brings together two complementary projects.

O Pão do Futuro Antigo

LANDRA Collective — Sara Rodrigues and Rodrigo Camacho, with Clara Santiago

O Pão do Futuro Antigo uses bread as a starting point to explore alternatives to monoculture and the simplification of agricultural landscapes.

Across five residencies following the seasons, the artists work with the community and the school through a process that moves from soil to bread-making: observing life in the soil, identifying plants, sowing, creating plant associations, following biodiversity over time, harvesting, experimenting with flours, fermentation and bread-making.

The montado and local ecosystems serve as references for imagining more complex agricultural systems, capable of producing food through relationships between different species rather than through a single crop alone.

Throughout the process, visual, sound and written materials, experiments, learning and experimental breads will be gathered into a digital manual and a final installation at the Torrão Ethnographic Museum.

The question is therefore no longer simply how to make a different bread.

It also becomes:

What kind of territory do we need to cultivate for another bread to become possible?

Do Pão do Tempo Longo

BRUTA Project — Patrícia Miguel Dias

Do Pão do Tempo Longo travels in the opposite direction.

It begins with what still remains in the memory of the territory, mapping the bread cycle in the parish of Torrão and its surrounding areas.

Who cultivated the grain? Where was it milled? What breads and sweets were made? Which recipes remain? What words, objects and gestures belonged to this cycle? Who still knows them?

Through fieldwork, listening, interviews and documentation in text, audio, photography and drawing, the project gathers testimonies, recipes, vocabulary, practices, places and memories connected to bread. The results will also be organised into a digital map, helping to preserve and make accessible part of this living heritage.

The research then returns to the community through workshops and moments of public sharing, in which local knowledge-holders take part in transmitting recipes, sourdough and long-fermentation practices, bakery knowledge, sayings and songs associated with the bread cycle.

An Iberian conversation about bread

The programme also opens a conversation between Torrão and other territories.

In 2027, Ibán Yarza, researcher, author and communicator specialising in bread culture, joins the process of Do Pão do Tempo Longo for a journey through the territory and an encounter centred on his experience of documenting and mapping pães de pueblo in Spain.

The comparison brings different breads, landscapes, communities and forms of knowledge transmission into dialogue, expanding the reflection on bread as living cultural heritage.

The school as a territory for learning

The school does not take part in Do Pão do Vagar simply as an audience.

It is part of the process itself.

Across the seasons, students observe the soil, identify plants, sow, plant, follow crops, experiment with flours, harvest, thresh, mill and make bread.

Ecology, food, heritage, science, art and history therefore cease to appear as separate subjects and become parts of the same experience.

The Torrão School Group is particularly involved in the process of O Pão do Futuro Antigo, in coordination with the National Arts Plan and the school’s Cultural Plan.

The programme also builds relationships with schools and communities in Arraiolos, Mora and Mértola, extending the learning process to other territories.

Time as material

Do Pão do Vagar unfolds over more than a year because some things cannot be accelerated.

A seed needs time to germinate.

Soil needs time to respond.

A plant needs to pass through the seasons.

A memory needs trust before it can be shared.

Dough needs time to ferment.

This is also the sense in which the programme speaks of Vagar: not slowness for its own sake, but attention to the time needed to observe, understand, learn, transform and transmit.

The programme brings together artistic residencies, fieldwork, encounters with the community, workshops, public presentations and activations between October 2026 and November 2027.

From Torrão to other landscapes

Torrão is the programme’s core territory.

The school, the Ethnographic Museum, Padarias Reunidas, the experimental plots, the montado and, above all, the people who hold experience and knowledge connected to the bread cycle form the programme’s working territory.

In 2027, some of the tools and learning developed here will be activated in Mora, Vimieiro, Arraiolos and Mértola, through schools, associations and cultural organisations.

The intention is not to reproduce Torrão elsewhere.

Every territory has its own soils, foods, landscapes, memories and people.

The question is to understand what can be learnt in one place and transformed by another.

Impact beyond growth

Do Pão do Vagar begins from a simple idea: not every form of impact can be measured through growth.

Impact can be found in the quality of the relationships that remain, in knowledge that is not lost, in a school recognising itself as an active part of its territory, in the recovery of soil, in diversity returning to a piece of land, or in the trust created between people who had not previously worked together.

Throughout the programme, we are interested in observing what changes at different levels:

— in the landscape, through experimentation with more biodiverse and regenerative systems;
— in knowledge, by documenting practices, words, recipes, gestures and memories that may disappear if they are no longer transmitted;
— in education, by creating situations in which children and young people learn through direct experience and their relationship with the territory;
— in the community, by bringing generations, producers, artists, schools and institutions into closer relationship;
— in culture, by treating bread not as a fixed object from the past, but as living heritage capable of continuing to change;
— in the capacity of the territory, by leaving behind methodologies, relationships and tools that can continue beyond the programme’s formal timeframe.

The aim is not to do more simply for the sake of doing more.

It is to explore whether it is possible to do better, with greater diversity, more shared knowledge and stronger local capacity to imagine and build its own futures.

This approach connects Do Pão do Vagar with broader frameworks for sustainable transformation.

The programme contributes in particular to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals concerned with food and more sustainable production systems, education, resilient communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, terrestrial biodiversity and partnerships — particularly SDGs 2, 4, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 17.

It also shares affinities with the principles of the New European Bauhaus, bringing together sustainability, participation, culture, quality of experience and inclusion through a transdisciplinary approach in which artists, schools, producers, residents and institutions work together around a shared territory and concrete questions.

Regeneration is therefore understood not only as environmental improvement or economic growth. It is also the capacity to learn, care, transmit, participate and create new possibilities from the resources and knowledge already present in a place.

Project details and organisations involved

Programme
Do Pão do Vagar

Period
October 2026 — November 2027

Main territory
Torrão, Alcácer do Sal, Portugal

Programme supported by
Évora_27 — European Capital of Culture
A Nossa Vez Open Call

Application submitted by
Colectivo de Amigos do Convento da Terra — informal group

Artistic direction
Filipa de Assis

Institutional support and co-funding
Foundation DaST — Design a Sustainable Tomorrow

Hosting, mediation and territorial coordination
Convento da Terra

Artistic projects

O Pão do Futuro Antigo
LANDRA Collective — Sara Rodrigues and Rodrigo Camacho
with Clara Santiago

Do Pão do Tempo Longo
BRUTA Project — Patrícia Miguel Dias

Guest
Ibán Yarza

Education

National Arts Plan
Torrão School Group
Arraiolos School Group
Mora Basic and Secondary School
Mértola School

Territory, community and heritage

Torrão Parish Council
Municipality of Alcácer do Sal
Torrão Ethnographic Museum
Torrão Senior University
Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Torrão

Production, agriculture and agroecology

Padarias Reunidas do Torrão
Herdade do Portocarro
Terra Sintrópica Association
monte da amOrada Association

Circulation and hosting

Córtex Frontal / Córtexcult Association
Rural World Interpretation Centre — Vimieiro
Fábrica de Massas Aliança — Arraiolos
Casinhas com Alma — Torrão

Communication and editorial amplification

Gerador

Regional recognition

Turismo do Alentejo — Alentejo Regional Tourism Promotion Agency

Expected outputs

Digital manual — O Pão do Futuro Antigo
Digital map — Do Pão do Tempo Longo
Installation and performance
Workshops and public presentations
Activations across different territories in Alentejo

Acknowledgements

Do Pão do Vagar is built with many people beyond those listed in the project credits.

We thank all the residents of Torrão who have shared their time, memories, knowledge, recipes, places and stories with the artistic teams; the bakers, farmers and producers; older residents who carry experience connected to the bread cycle; the teachers, staff and students of the schools involved; and everyone who, throughout the programme, helps us better understand the relationship between landscape, food and culture in this territory.

Special thanks go to the people and organisations who open their spaces and share their knowledge with the project — because this work is only possible when the territory is no longer simply the place where a programme happens, but becomes part of those who build it.